Overview

For seasoned opera-goers and first-time listeners alike, the definitive collection of opera stories. Now offered as a handsome boxed set, this guide treats opera lovers to 225 absorbing plot summaries. John Freeman has carefully selected the works to represent every opera performed today in the world's great houses, and he succeeds in vividly recounting the often intricate narratives. Whether used as a pre-performance refresher or a bedside companion, this new set of Metropolitan Opera Stories of the Great ...

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Overview

For seasoned opera-goers and first-time listeners alike, the definitive collection of opera stories. Now offered as a handsome boxed set, this guide treats opera lovers to 225 absorbing plot summaries. John Freeman has carefully selected the works to represent every opera performed today in the world's great houses, and he succeeds in vividly recounting the often intricate narratives. Whether used as a pre-performance refresher or a bedside companion, this new set of Metropolitan Opera Stories of the Great Operas, Volumes One and Two, is an essential addition to any opera lover's library.

Here at last is the definitive opera story collection, the only one now authorized by the Metropolitan Opera. Written by the associate editor of Opera News magazine, the volume includes the complete plots of 150 different operas, biographical information on all of the 72 composers represented, easy access to the stories through both a table of contents and an index, and a foreword by Peter Allen.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

Freeman, associate editor of Opera News and author of the first volume of The Metropolitan Opera Stories of the Great Operas (LJ 11/15/84), presents this second volume of stories from 125 more operas, this time covering less familiar works, such as early pieces (Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in partria, 1640) and contemporary ones (John Adams's Nixon in China, 1987). The entries are arranged by composer, with a brief introduction providing background on the life and works of each. Because Freeman focuses on less familiar works, he includes Verdi's early operas (I Lombardi, Stiffelio, I due Foscari) rather than the works often performed today. Many of the operas are known more from references in the literature of opera (Halvy's La Juive, 1835) or because of well-known excerpts from otherwise forgotten works (Catalani's La Wally, 1892). However, these works are part of the vocabulary of opera, so there is a need for the hard-to-find information presented here. The biographies and shorter synopses of many of these pieces are available in standard reference works, but this is still a good selection for larger music collections with a need for in-depth materials.-James E. Ross, WLN, Seattle

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